Europe’s biggest energy start-up competition for funding and growth opens

Reducing costs of heating buildings due to the use of solar energy, heat pump and a patented heat exchanger, or a project allowing to reduce the consumption of energy by cooling devices. Sounds innovative? These are a few winning projects of last year’s edition of PowerUp! by InnoEnergy.

The call for proposals starting now is the third edition of the largest competition designed for start-ups operating in the sector of sustainable energy in 23 countries in central and eastern Europe, in the Baltics and parts of the Mediterranean. People interested in taking part can submit their ideas starting at powerup.innoenergy.com. Entries close on September 11.

The Competition has created a huge opportunity for European innovators for executing and developing their projects, and for becoming present on the global market.

“The PowerUp! Competition is a platform for presenting ideas that could be left unnoticed otherwise. Winning innovation technologies and other ideas that will be possible to be implemented will help Europe in protecting the environment and also, after commercialisation, can have a global impact with the help of InnoEnergy”, said Jakub Miler, CEO InnoEnergy Poland Plus, organiser of the Competition.

PowerUp! creates multiple opportunities and opens many doors. This fact can be confirmed by last year’s winners: PolarSol from Estonia, PleioneEnergy from Greece, GreenerGizer from Hungary, as well as Bin-E from Poland.

Winners will receive financial prizes as well access to a prestigious accelerator called Highway by InnoEnergy, transforming ideas and projects into a market reality. It offers young entrepreneurs access to knowledge and large support in the area of developing and protecting a product, entry on the market, team-building or access to seed funding. It also enables permanent access to 150 biggest partners operating in the power industry, simplifying fast entry onto the global maker.

The Grand Finale in Budapest and 15 regional finales, will be preceded by intense workshops. The teams will have an opportunity of working on the details of their projects and presenting them to experts and investors. Such meetings are a one-of-a-kind chance for establishing business contacts, attracting attention of media while contributing to building a strong position on the market of sustainable energy in this region of Europe.

“Our primary aim is to support innovation in the sector of energy. We provide such support at each level of development – starting with the idea to delivery of the final product to the recipients. Thanks to our partnership network, we build connections in the entire Europe, uniting graduates with employers, inventors with the industry and researchers with companies” explainsedJakub Miler.

The competition has been growing dynamically. New countries join it every year. InnoEnergy invites start-ups and entrepreneurs from 23 countries of central and eastern Europe to take part in the third edition of PowerUp! 2017 (Bulgaria, Albania, Croatia, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Czech Republic, Estonia, Macedonia, Greece, Georgia, Hungary, Moldova, Montenegro, Latvia, Serbia, Lithuania, Turkey, Ukraine, Poland, Cyprus, Slovakia, Slovenia and Romania). To take part in the competition, you have to submit a project that regards sustainable energy, create a team, have the prototype and fill out the form on the competition site.